


Sputnik

by IsThereARealLife



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: Civil War Trailer, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Your bucky, wow thats actually a common tag lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6118120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsThereARealLife/pseuds/IsThereARealLife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He first sees the word in an old Hydra file. The problem is, he can speak passable Russian, but he never learnt to read it. So it’s just another word, off-set among a thousand others he can’t understand.</p><p>It was just a word in a file that no one would explain. </p><p>What could possibly be so bad about a single word?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sputnik

**Author's Note:**

> based on the knowledge of the Winter Soldier's shut down code
> 
> thanks to [ishita](http://www.akadefenders.tumblr.com) and [alex](http://www.there-be-monsters-here.tumblr.com) for being awesome and editing and helping me work out the kinks in this. you guys are as always the best

He first sees the word in an old Hydra file. It was somewhere buried in the basement of an old facility in Russia, as so many of them are. The problem is, he can speak passable Russian, but he never learnt to read it. So it’s just another word, off-set among a thousand others he can’t understand.

But Nat, who is standing right next to him when they open the file, knows exactly what it says. She gasps and tenses just barely, so minutely that if he hadn’t worked with her so long, wasn’t so attuned to her body language, he might’ve missed it. Then she’s turning on her heel and walking away, snapping that “We’ve got everything we need. We’ll let Fury know, he’ll clear the place out.”

Steve hurries to catch up. “Nat? What did it say?”

She doesn’t look at him. “Nothing important.”

“Look, we’re trying to find Bucky,” he persists. “If it was anything that—”

“Steve,” she cuts him off sharply. “It was nothing. Leave it.”

 

That night, Steve is woken up by someone restlessly turning in the bed next to him. Nat, normally as still as a board when she’s asleep, is tossing and turning, the covers tangled around her legs. All the while muttering something that sounds like ‘Yasha’.

He can’t just wake her up. Last time he tried that, he almost got a knife in the throat.

Steve doesn’t flinch when Barton knows where they are. Of course Nat would’ve told him. He’s probably been bonding with Sam over the bird thing too. He doesn’t mind, really. It’s good someone knows what they’re doing, where they are.

“What’s wrong, Cap? I’m about to eat.”

“Your girlfriend is having a nightmare and I want to avoid a knife in the face this time.”

“She’s not my—”

“Don’t bullshit me now, Barton. She needs you,” Steve retorts. “Also, she keeps saying ‘Yasha’ over and over. If that helps.”

Clint goes suddenly silent for a moment, all the ambient noise from his end ceasing, before he says quietly, “Put the phone down near her. I got this.”

He does just that, then leaves to give them some privacy, but not before he hears the first words of a Russian lullaby crackle through the crappy phone speaker.

 

She’s in a memory. She has to be. This can’t be happening.

The first time they kissed, shared names. Yasha. Natalia.

Flash.

Lying side by side in a small bed, whispering forbidden things, hidden fears in the darkness. Fingers dancing on skin. A secret word that mustn’t be spoken. A promise.

Flash.

Yanked out of bed by their ankles. They found them. They fight, of course they do. Yasha takes three of them out before they say it. He stops. Sinks. Shuts down. Eyes dead. Gone. Gone. Yasha. YASHA! She struggles to get to him. YASHA! Darkness.

Music. Singing. Someone singing. Her eyes shoot open and she sits bolt upright, panting.

“Nat?” Her name. “Nat, it’s ok.”

Yasha?

“No, it’s Clint.” Clint? “Natasha, you're okay.” Natasha… Her name. That’s her name now. 

She looks around for the voice, and a light on her pillow from a phone screen draws her attention.

A face is flashing there, a familiar face. The names reads Bird Man 1. Clint… Clint!

“Nat?”

“Clint. Yeah I'm… I'm here.” She picks up the phone and turns off the speaker. 

“Hey.”

A wan smile pulls at her lips and she breathes, “Hey,” back.

Clint stays quiet. He knows her well enough now. They have a system. He waits until she says something else. Sometimes she just wants a distraction, a story, sometimes to talk about it, sometimes just the lullaby. 

After several quiet minutes, she murmurs, “We found something. Not important to finding him but…” She swallows around the lump in her throat. “From before. I was so scared Clint. There was… there was nothing I could do.” There is another heavy silence while he waits for her to continue. “I… I can’t say it. I won’t say what it was… Can you just…” She doesn’t have to say anything more because Clint knows. He nods, though she can’t see, and starts singing again, picking up right where he left off. 

 

The next time he sees it they’re back in the U.S. going through some of the files with Fury. Mostly paper, but there’s a stack of old disks in the pile too. Clint pulls out his ancient (apparently) computer that can still play the things and they cycle through. Sometimes there are English subtitles, sometimes not. This one doesn’t have subtitles, so he doesn’t know which word it was, which was important, but at some point, the recording is suddenly shut off.

Nat is standing behind them, slowly lowering the remote in her shaking hand. The laptop she was typing the translation onto is discarded to one side and she mutters, “That’s enough.”

And okay, maybe Steve shouldn’t push but he is getting frustrated and nervous at this withholding of information. “Nat, what is it? Why don’t you want me to know?”

“It doesn’t matter, Steve,” she snaps. “It’s not important to finding him so it is irrelevant.”

She doesn’t storm off or freak out this time, but she curls into herself more, even at the dinner table later. She walks off right after she finishes eating. Clint follows a few moments later, giving her space but still being there for her.

Sam and Steve both exchange confused glances but Fury growls something about leaving it the fuck alone and starts clearing the dishes. Sam shrugs and they both follow Fury’s lead.

 

She’s standing on the porch when Clint finds her, looking out into the darkness lying thick over the wheat fields. She’s stiff, shoulders tense. He leans down on the railing and looks too.

“Was that…?”

“Yeah.”

He nods. “Okay.” Then he stands up again, drapes a coat around her shoulders and takes her hand. He leads her down onto the dirt path towards the trees near the edge of the property. The edge of the hill there provides the perfect vantage point over the valley. No houses, no extraneous light. Just the stars and the wind and the rolling hills. It’s as close to peace as either of them can manage nowadays. 

 

The next morning when Nat stumbles out of the bedroom that very definitely belongs to Clint, Steve mutters, “I knew it,” and smirks at the now-emerging Barton. He doesn’t even spare Steve a glance, on a single-minded mission for the coffee machine, and Nat just flips him the finger.

Sam, on the other hand, who is sitting next to Steve at the table, huffs and pulls out two $10 notes, slapping them into Steve and Nick’s hands respectively with a sigh. 

“You shoulda known not to bet against me, Wilson. I practically raised these two,” Fury said smugly under his breath in a useless attempt to avoid being overheard by the late risers.

 

Things with Stark are getting heated, they could use some good news.

They find Bucky. They find him when they’re back in Europe. Finally, finally the lead doesn’t go cold the moment they leave American soil. Finally it doesn’t go completely dead the moment the plane touches down on international territory.

Almost, but not quite. It’s a warehouse, it’s night time. They think the facility is empty, but Nat insists she can see something on the infra-red camera. They reach the very last room to check, Steve’s hand is shaking as he slams his shield down on the lock and reaches to pull the heavy steel open. Sam rests a hand on his shoulder and squeezes in reassuringly. Steve glances back and nods.

There’s a steel press in the middle of the room. And… and right there. Bucky. Bucky on the floor. Shit. Bucky’s arm in the press. And god the look in his eyes. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares, pleading. Help, he mouths.

“We can’t go to Stark.” They both know that.

It takes a while, but eventually, with some of Sam’s ingenuity and Steve’s strength, they manage to free him. He remembers Steve. Steve almost cries, Sam can tell. He tries not to, it’s a relatively happy occasion, after all. But Sam could tell, buried under all that angry hope, Steve still hadn’t been able to let go of a small nugget of doubt, of fear, that maybe they wouldn’t find him, maybe he wouldn’t remember, maybe he wouldn’t even care anymore after everything Hydra did to him.

But there was a fondness in Bucky’s voice that couldn’t be denied and Steve finally had the answer to almost all the questions he’d been asking for the past three years. 

And then they run. Agents storm the building looking for Bucky and they get as far as Romania before they’re caught and brought back to the United States.

He tries. Steve tries so hard to protect him but they take him away for “evaluation” while Steve is preoccupied in some meeting. Stark and the government’s crap. Bucky isn’t a criminal, he was a prisoner of war, he was programmed, he had no control. All the files they’ve spent the last years picking apart for clues as to where he might be should be enough proof of that. But these _Accords_ … Who knows what they’ll do to Bucky.

The worst thing is, Nat agrees with them. She tells him not to go after Bucky again. “I told you after SHIELD fell not to pull on this thread, Steve. Please listen this time. 

“You didn’t seem to have an issue with it all before this.”

“There are things you don’t know. Dangerous things that could put you at risk, things that put him at risk. It is for the safety of everyone involved, and everyone who could be involved. Civilians, Steve. Your team. Everyone.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what it is then?! You have been keeping something from me this entire time. If I just _knew_ then maybe I could help. I could protect him!”

“You can’t! You need to drop it, Rogers.”

Steve sighs. “I’m sorry, Nat. He’s my friend. He’s more than… I just got him back and I just can’t.” He hangs up and a weight settles in his gut. If he can’t get to Bucky, he feels like he’ll have lost more than just the one friend in this decision.

 

It comes up again not two weeks later. He got Bucky from the government holding cell. It’s not the FBI waiting for them outside though.

Brock Rumlow. Or Crossbones, as he likes to be called now. Steve engages him while Bucky takes on the other Hydra agents with him. But Steve knows how Buck must have felt back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, always watching his back, always worrying. Because that’s what Steve is doing now. He’s distracted and it doesn’t take long for Rumlow to have him pinned. Muffled grunts and thuds from out of his line of sight suggest Bucky is still fighting.

“He remembered you, you know,” Rumlow taunts. “I was there when they tortured him, when they reprogrammed him. When they wiped his memory and rewrote it all. But you…” He scoffs. “They could never get rid of you. And then I’d go back to SHIELD the next day and pretend to be your friend and y’know, it was sad, how pathetic you were. Always going down to that exhibit in the museum and just staring at his picture for hours. Pining. And sometimes I almost laughed. Because I knew exactly where he was. Your pal. Your _buddy_. _Your Bucky_.”

While he had been struggling before, this makes Steve pause. No one knows that… No one could know. God, does _Bucky_ know? He almost let it slip to Natasha the other day, have other people noticed things? Has he slipped up more often than he realised?

“I know something else, too,” Rumlow continues. “Something you don’t. You’ve been wondering for years what that word was that made Natalia so scared. Would you like to know? It’s just a word after all. What harm can come from one word?” He leans in close and Steve is frozen. He can see Bucky dispatching the last of the Hydra agents out of the corner of his eye. “Sputnik. Say it Cap. It’s just a satellite. Say it out loud, so he can hear. Are you scared? Is the great Captain America a coward? What do you think it’ll do? Say it! Say i—”

“No!” And suddenly his face is gone. Bucky and a machine gun are in his place, panting hard. Steve sinks to the ground, heart beating too fast and the muscles in his legs turned to jelly. Bucky aims the weapon at Crossbones’ prone body, ready to fire.

“Don’t,” Steve mumbles with a look at the news choppers hovering above them. “They won’t be able to ignore this one, they’ll lock you up for the rest of your life.”

He looks like he wants to protest, but eventually, he drops the gun. Instead, Bucky reaches down to give him a hand, saying, “Come on then, Stevie. We better get out of here before someone else shows up.”

 

Steve doesn’t have the time to ask Bucky what that word meant in the next few days. There’s too much to do, too many things to deal with surrounding Tony and the Accords, and then all of a sudden everyone is spread out across the airport fighting.

Okay, maybe he did have the time. He spent enough of it just thinking about it over the last three days. Thinking about everything, really. Did Bucky hear what Crossbones said, about being _his_ Bucky? Did he hear any of it? Did he notice Steve’s expression? Does he _know_ now? The secret he’s been keeping for the past 85 years, since he was a scared thirteen-year-old discovering the feelings he had for his best friend weren’t what they should be.

But mostly, what does the word do? He’s been asking Natasha about it for over two years now. And she always freaked out or shut down when it came up. It has to be bad, right? ‘Sputnik’ is a fairly innocuous word but the way people have talked about it… It must be related to Bucky’s Winter Soldier days, obviously. Does it reset his memory? Does it activate him? Oh god, what if it activates him? What if someone says it and he reverts back to that puppet he was for Pierce? Or the KGB?

He could’ve talked to his friend, of course he could. But he didn’t want to distract him. He didn’t want to worry him or set him off. So he stews. And now they have other things to worry about.

He won’t lie, it feels good, more than good, to have Bucky at his side again. It feels like the world is back as it should be. It’s different, obviously, but at the same time familiar and comforting. 

It started on the runway. They tried to talk, Clint pleading with Nat, Vision with Wanda. Peter and Scott just glare at each other, though Steve is fairly sure that is more of a ‘who’s the better bug guy’ than anything else. Steve and Tony trying and failing once again to explain themselves to each other. To his left, Bucky was in a staring competition with Black Panther. Steve doesn’t really know what happens, he was too focuses on his conversation, but suddenly Bucky and T’Challa are launching at each other, fighting. That spurs everyone else into action.

It’s all sort of a blur after that, but somehow Steve and Bucky end up inside with Tony, trying to get him to surrender. Then he just… stops trying to fight them, he sort of gives up, only defending himself and not trying to gain any upper hand. Did he hear something through his suit comm? And then he just takes off, flying down the hall and outside, over the runway to the grass on the other side. Bucky and Steve follow as close as they can, past the others, who seem to be winding down the fighting and moving away to lick their wounds, so to speak.

Tony is hunched over a prone figure encased in steel. Colonel Rhodes. The arc reactor has been ripped from his chest. Probably Scott. Steve can’t tell if he’s still breathing inside the suit.

“This has to stop, Rogers. Just sign the Accords, turn Barnes over, and it all stops.” Okay, he isn’t fuming or raging yet, which means Rhodes is most likely still alive. Thank god.

“I’m sorry Tony. You know I wouldn’t do this if I had any other choice, but he’s my friend.” 

“So was I…” Tony mutters and Steve sighs at that. He supposes they were, to a certain extent. But Bucky… is Bucky. He’d be more than a friend, if Bucky wanted that too. He hadn’t thought much past getting him back until he had him. But now, in this century, where that sort of relationship is allowed, he has started daring to hope again. No friendship with Tony could ever hold a candle to that. Tony must read something of that on his face because he snorts and turns back to Rhodes.

“Rhodey is going to be okay, Tony. Get him some help and we can _talk_ some more. One hour, back on the runway. And tell T’Challa to stop pissing off Bucky.”

Tony’s lips thin. “It wasn’t just—”

“And I will tell Bucky to lay off, too. Tell everyone to calm down a bit. We’re trying to diffuse the situation, not escalate it.”

With that, Steve turned around and made his way back to where his team as already gathering. Bucky, not two steps ahead of him, waits and grips his shoulder tight in reassurance.

 

Exactly an hour later they all walk down the runway towards the other team, ready to talk. They are almost together, only two hundred yards apart, when someone else walks out onto the tarmac between them. Crossbones, followed by more than a dozen Hydra agents. “Hey Cap!” he yells, and everyone stops to assess the situation. Then the agents aim their guns at Steve’s people and Tony’s.

“What do we do?” Sam asks.

Steve grimaces. He makes eye contact with Tony, who nods and flips his visor shut. “We fight.” And everyone is moving again, this time at a run and an angle towards the newcomers. Clint starts firing his arrows and then the agents start to look like they’re having seizures, or doing violent interpretive dance. Scott must have been on the end of one of the arrows.

But Rumlow keeps talking, unnaturally loud. He must have a microphone in his helmet. “Have you asked him yet, Cap? Have you even said it out loud?” Steve grits his teeth. Oh no. Oh no no no. He runs faster. “No? I figured. Because you’re _weak_ , Captain. You don’t dare.” He has to stop him. He has to get there, before— “Well, if you won’t say it, I guess I’ll have to.” Don’t. Don’t say it. Please don’t! Please… “SPUTNIK!”

“NO!” The high-pitched shriek didn’t come from Steve. While there are nine other people whose motions falter in confusion, Steve and Natasha both freezes in terror. He can’t see Bucky in his peripheral vision, but Nat must be able to see him from wherever she is. He hears both Sam and Clint on his right swearing, and then yelling as they charge straight at Rumlow. Steve doesn’t know if this was part of his plan, but Crossbones now has nine angry superheros bearing down on him. He is either incredibly overconfident or incredibly stupid: he isn’t even moving away.

But Steve can’t think about that right now. His head is filled with BuckyBuckyBucky. He doesn’t want to see what that word does, but he has to. He has to know. He takes a deep breath and turns.

Bucky is still standing, just. His eyes are glazed over, staring at nothing. His face is lax, his right arm hanging useless and limp at his side. Even as Steve watches, Bucky’s knees buckle and he sinks to the tarmac, not even flinching despite the pain it must cause him. The metal arm whirrs and seems to be shutting itself down, hanging loose to mirror the human one. Steve sees his chest rise with a deep breath, then fall, and at the same time, his head drops too. Completely passive.

It is… horrifying. Steve has never been so afraid in his whole life. Even when Bucky fell off the train, he knew he was gone, he was distraught, but not afraid. He knew exactly what was happening then. But now… Now he is totally lost. All the sounds of fighting behind him fade. He doesn’t know what to do. What does he do? He doesn’t even know what’s happening.

He takes one step forward, then another and another. He’s right there and he drops to his knees in front of his friend. “Bucky?” He shakes the other man’s shoulder. “Bucky, wake up! Please…”

It’s then that he feels Nat’s presence behind him. “It’s like an off switch,” she says. “A programmed safety mechanism, in case the Winter Soldier ever started going rogue on a mission and had to be shut down. I’ve—” She clears her throat. “I’ve only seen it used once before and I… I’m sorry Steve, I was just trying to protect you. Both of you.”

Steve turns to her. “How do you fix it? You’ve seen it, how do they put him back?”

“I don’t know. They took him away. I didn’t see him again after that. I assume they just reprogrammed him. I don’t know if there’s a different word to reset or anything. I’m so sorry, Steve.”

“No. No, there has to be something we can do.” He cups Bucky’s chin with one hand and tilts his head up to look at his still unfocused eyes, and brushes his long hair back behind an ear with the other hand. “Come on Buck, come back. It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe.” They sit hunched like that for some indeterminate amount of time, Steve pleading and Nat murmuring in Russian. But no amount of talking or shaking makes any difference.

Abruptly, Nat interrupts, reverting back to English to say, “Bring him back.”

Steve glances back, confused.

“Make him come back. Remind him, show him.” He still blinks owlishly. “I heard what Rumlow said to you during your escape the other day. Bucky _remembered you_ , even through his programming. Even after everything, he still remembered you. So remind him again. Show him you’re here.”

Steve nods. That sort of makes sense. Then he remembers the time he found him in Zola’s lab. He was practically catatonic, but Steve being there brought him back. It’s worth a try. “Hey, Buck. It’s me. It’s Steve. Come back to me. Come on. I’ll keep you safe. I’m going to take you home and we can… we can put the couch cushions on the floor. We’ll listen to the ball game and talk about nothing and… and… Please, Buck. Please. Remember me.”

“Kiss him,” Nat interrupts. And, what?!

“Uh…”

“Go on, I know you love him. Anyone who knows you could read it on your face.”

“But—”

“Do it before I make you.”

Steve swallows around the lump in his throat. He’s really going to do this. Okay. Okay. It’s okay. He leans in. “Bucky?” Once last try. And then their lips meet. It’s… weird, with how still Bucky is. But then… then he inhales. Steve can feel it, the way the other man’s shoulders shudder and rise. He pulls back fractionally, searching Bucky’s eyes and they’re no longer vacant. They are a little crossed, actually, trying to focus on Steve’s face. 

“Stevie?” he rasps. His arm whirrs and he takes another shaky breath. 

“Yeah, Buck. It’s me. I’m here.” He absently brushes at another loose strand of hair.

Bucky frowns. “Why are you crying? What happened?”

It’s only then that he notices the accumulating at his chin, running further down his neck. “Rumlow said your shutdown code. I didn’t know. I couldn’t… You came back though. You’re back.” His mouth twitches in a somewhat awed smile and he pulls his best friend into a tired embrace.

“Yeah, well someone’s gotta keep your punk ass in line,” he smirks as he returns the hug and buries his face in Steve’s shoulder.

Steve huffs a quiet laugh.

It’s then that Sam walks into his line of sight and gives him a thumbs up. Rumlow and the Hydra agents have been successfully dispatched. Nat joins him and starts mouthing something he can’t make out. She rolls her eyes in frustration when he doesn’t understand and gestures at the ground… where a few thousands ants have crawled into position on the tarmac to make a picture. He squints at it and… oh. God. It’s two people kissing. Actually it is a very detailed picture in which he can clearly make out his own and Bucky’s faces. He purses his lips and glares at Nat and Sam, who have started laughing. 

He can’t see where anyone else is but he is sure they can see it. Or even if they can’t, they’re probably thinking the same thing anyway. At some point or another, every person present has tried to set him up on a date, or fifty. Their antics suspiciously ended not long before they found Bucky…

So they probably all know. Great. Wonderful.

“Steve, what’s wrong? You’re all tense…” Bucky pulls away. 

He sighs. “Nothing. All our friends are assholes.”

Bucky looks around, and Steve feels his heart stop momentarily until he realises the ant art has scattered.

“What do you mean? They’re all just standing over there.” He points to his right where, lo and behold, the others are all mingling and chatting and even laughing a bit, as though they hadn’t been trying to beat each other unconscious barely more than an hour earlier.

“Oh. Nothing, then.”

“Steve…?”

Steve’s eyes flick briefly to Bucky’s lips before he moves to stand up.

“Nothing, Buck. Come on, we should go talk to the others. He turns away before Bucky can reply, but hears him scrambling to his feet.

“Steve.”

He doesn’t turn.

“Steve, get your ass back here.”

He slows and takes a long, centering breath. “What is it, Buck?”

“Would you just—” He grabs Steve’s arm and spins him around to face him. Bucky barely pauses before yanking him closer and pressing his lips against Steve’s.

 

“Hey, Nat?” Wanda’s voice interrupts Nat’s moment with Clint. “Get your camera.”

“What? Why?”

Wanda points, and she follows the line of her finger to… oh. Oh yes. Where’s her phone?

 

Steve’s arms automatically move to Bucky’s waist as he sinks further into the kiss, while the hand not still clinging to his upper arm moves to cup the back of his head, metal fingers burying themselves in his short hair. Distantly, he registers the conversation behind him has stopped, and that spurs the realisation that he is kissing his best friend. He is _kissing Bucky_. No, something must be wrong. He doesn’t get to have this.

Bucky seems to notice his sudden distress because he pulls away. “Steve?”

“This can’t be real. I don’t get to have this. You.” He shakes his head. The hand in his hair tightens, pulling sharply at the strands and causing Steve to yelp.

“Seems real enough to me,” Bucky smirks.

“How do we… with everything… and all this—” He gestures at the others. “The Accords and what they’re trying to do to you and all of us and…”

Bucky just shrugs though, not seemingly plagued by the same fears. “We’ll figure it out. You’ve been getting into trouble since the twenties, you punk. You’ve managed to work it out so far.”

He snorts. “Not nearly so well without you around.” His smile falls then, and tears well up in his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you again.”

Bucky strokes his hand through Steve’s hair. “But you didn’t. I’m still here. I’m with you, till the end of the line.”

“Till the end of the line.”

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: 'Yasha' is the Russian form of 'James'
> 
> feedback, comments, kudos are always very welcome and much appreciated :)
> 
> also you can come say hi on my tumblr at [ismylifejustfantasy](http://www.ismylifejustfantasy.tumblr.com)


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